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The Natural Environment Research Council this week was taken to pieces by the Public Accounts Committee over the construction of the Southampton University's Oceanography Centre. The committee, acting on a report from the National Audit Office, criticised the council's repeated failure to follow advice in not appointing a project manager, in its relationship with its architects and in the general management of the construction which overspent considerably. Charles Wardle MP said this had been "parasitic" on the taxpayer.